At a campaign stop in Iowa last night, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) claimed that the Obama administration is “trying to scare people” about natural gas fracking. He told the attendees of a house party in Cedar Rapids that natural gas drilling with hydraulic fracturing has never damaged groundwater, and expressed concern that Iowans would miss out on the natural gas boom:

You have this administration talking about stopping hydraulic fracking, trying to scare people, saying that hydraulic fracking somehow or other is going to damage the groundwater, and so we’ve got to stop this. Not one time that I’m aware of has hydraulic fracking impacted groundwater. And if we don’t have the ability to frack, then all of the Pennsylvania Marcellus shale — you know, we don’t know what’s under the surface here in Iowa. There may be copious amounts of natural gas down there. Because the Eagle Ford in Texas, no one knew it was there until four or five years ago. New technologies finding new ways to bring this energy source. And we need to be, we need to be talking about ways to make America as independent energywise as we can. And it covers the watershed.

The Obama administration is considering whether to enforce clean air laws at drilling sites, which have blanketed Wyoming with poisonous haze. An industry-friendly panel for the Department of Energy recommended that frackers stop using diesel fuel and that they disclose the ingredients in fracking fluid. Perry might not be aware of the dangers of unregulated fracking, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real.